Dr hab. Julia Pawłowska from the University of Warsaw, together with Austrian researchers, will soon start working on a project funded under the Weave-UNISONO call. The Polish component of the project has a budget of more than 1.7 million zlotys.
Entitled Mofale: Mortierellaceae Functional Diversity in Alpine Ecosystems, the project will be run by a Polish team led by Dr hab. Julia Pawłowska from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Warsaw in partnership with Austrian researchers headed by Prof. Ursula Peintner from the Department of Microbiology of the University of Innsbruck. Their goal is to find, isolate and describe currently unknown Mortierellaceae and to prepare a functional characterisation of this important fungal group in threatened alpine habitats using culture-dependent and independent approaches.
Their research represents an innovative and promising approach that is likely to give us a better insight into the role of fungi in alpine ecosystems.
The proposal has been evaluated by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in its capacity of the Lead Agency. The National Science Centre has approved the results of the evaluation within the framework of collaboration under the Weave programme.
Weave-UNISONO and the Lead Agency Procedure
The Weave-UNISONO call is the result of multilateral cooperation between research-funding agencies that make up the Science Europe association. It aims to simplify submission and selection procedures for research proposals that bring together researchers from two or three different European countries in any academic discipline.
The selection process is based on the Lead Agency Procedure (LAP), under which only one partner institution is responsible for a merit-based evaluation and the others simply accept the result.
Under Weave, partner research teams apply in parallel to the lead agency and their relevant domestic institutions. Their joint proposal must include coherent research plans and clearly spell out the added value of international cooperation.
The Weave-UNISONO call accepts proposals on a rolling basis. Polish teams wishing to partner up with colleagues from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to read the call text and submit their funding proposals.